SAP

Industry

Enterprise Software

Location

Western United States

Roles placed

Senior VP West, Sales Directors, Sales Representatives, Pre-Sales Consultants

The challenge

SAP was standing up its Western US operation in the mid-1990s and needed a senior leader to run it before anything else could follow. The role had no existing team to inherit, no local track record to point to, and a short list of people in the country who had built an enterprise software region from nothing.

Everything downstream — the directors, the reps, the pre-sales bench — depended on getting that first hire right.

What we did

We ran the Senior Vice President search first and treated it as the foundation rather than one placement among many. Candidates were assessed on whether they had actually built a region, not simply managed one that already existed.